Coffee and Clubbing
by Blackelf99
Summary: Morgan convinces Reid to go clubbing. Reid is not having fun, but he meets another person who is also not having fun. REID/OC fic, NOT a casefic at all. M for swearing and mentions of sex but nothing descriptive.
1. Coffee and Clubbing

A/N: This is my first CM fic. I apologize if Reid was a bit OOC. I wanted to have him spout more statistics, but searching for, double-checking and working in exact factoids is, frankly, exhausting. Comment or shoot me a PM if you find any errors or have any ideas on how to make this better! This is totally un-beta'd. I own nothing but my OC, Ashlyn/Lyn.

Spencer Reid was not having fun.

Morgan had convinced him to join him 'clubbing' tonight. They claimed that it would be good for him, fun even, he may even pick up a nice girl. Reid didn't know why he'd said yes. His previous club experiences had all gone the same way: he sits in the corner awkwardly with a drink while gaggles of skimpily dressed men and women gawk at his choice of attire and lack of socializing.

It wasn't going to be any different this time, either.

He really just wanted to go home and watch reruns of documentaries, and maybe have a cup of coffee or something. Sadly, Morgan was his ride home and there was no way he would let Reid leave at only nine o'clock. So, resigning to his unfortunate fate, Reid ordered a beer and sat quietly at the far end of the bar, observing the interactions happening all around him.

After a total of seven different people pointed at him and laughed before drunkenly stumbling to the bathroom, Reid decided that yes- he had to tell Morgan that he wanted to go home _right now. _

This was not fun.

Reid was surveying the crowded dance floor for his friend, so he didn't see the miserable looking, petite brunette woman standing adjacent to him. Consequently, he bumped into her, spilling his mostly-still-full beer all over the front of her dress.

Of course, he started stammering profuse apologies, but to his surprise, the woman didn't seem angry at all. Quite the contrary.

"No need to apologize. It was an accident. I think. Besides, this gives me the perfect excuse to ditch this place." She was smiling slightly, revealing her sharp incisors, which made her look slightly vampiric.

Reid was startled. "You don't want to be here?" he asked.

"Not at all, actually. My friends convinced me that a night of music I detest and being hit on by ridiculously drunken people would be good for my social life." Her face and voice betrayed annoyance mixed with amusement. "I hate clubs. I don't even own the proper attire." She gestured at her outfit, a very proffessional navy blue dress with a high collar. She was right, Reid noted.

He nodded. "Same here. I would have left half an hour ago, but my friend is my ride."

The girl laughed. "Friends, amirite? Sometimes they just don't get it. I'm Ashlyn Snyder, by the way. Lyn for short." She stuck out her hand, which Reid quickly shook. "Reid. Spencer. I mean, Spencer Reid." he blushed.

Lyn pulled on her sticky dress and scowled. "This has been great and all, but I'm kinda, y'know, wet."

Reid began stammering apologies again and backing away from her. "I'm so sorry about that, your dress I mean, I should'nt have kept you. I'll just, Um, bye, I'm sorry-" He was cut off by Lyn's hand on his arm.

"It's cool." She seemed sincere. At least she wasn't frowning. "Seriously, I wasn't kidding when I said I already wanted to ditch this place." She paused for a moment, releasing her hand from Reid's arm. "You don't have a ride home, do you?" she asked for clarification. Reid assured her that he did not.

"I could give you a lift." Suddenly, she became shy- or more shy than she had already been, considering the situation. "I mean. Y'know. If you want. I'm sorry, nevermind, I shouldn't have-" this time it was her who was cut off. "Yes." Reid said. "I mean, uh, yeah. Sure. I'd like that. Maybe we could stop for coffee. Or something. If you want." He finished stammering through his reply, and Lyn's face brightened considerably.

Lyn led Reid out of the crowded club and into the parking lot. She paused on the sidewalk outside and rifled in her tall black leather boot. A moment later, she pulled out a set of keys and clicked a button on them. A car beeped from across the parking lot. "I can never remember where I fuckin' park," she muttered. "Oh, sorry for my language," she said to Reid, "I'm actually pretty vulgar." She laughed while staring at middle distance. An outsider to the conversation would hvae probably deemed her insane, but Reid thought she was adorable. She had an adorable laugh, like a wicked witch crossed with an asthmatic donkey, he thought.

"Are you okay to drive?" asked Reid as Lyn hopped into the driver's seat.

"Oh, of course. I actually don't drink, usually." She shrugged as if this wasn't unusual at all, but her face suggested that she didn't want to talk about it.

Lyn locked the doors and started the car. "I'm assuming you aren't a serial killer," she said lightly, beeping at the atrociously slow car in front of her.

"You shouldn't assume anything, that's not safe. I _could_ be a serial killer for all you know. Or a rapist. Did you know one in six women will be the victim of rape or attempted rape in their lifetime? The chances rise even more when you're in an environment where alcohol and other substances are present!" Reid refrianed from spouting any more sexual assault statistics, but he was very concerned for this woman's safety. He expected her to be a bit uncomfortable by his explosion of fcats, but she just smiled.

"Yeah, but I figured if you wanted to commit some sort of crime you would go to a bit more trouble to be less, well... extrinsic. Besides, 78% of rape victims know their attacker, I don't know you, and I'm completely sober right now." She paused for effect. "Besides, I have a taser in my boot, and I've been told I should actually be a little more afraid to use it." She grinned like the Chesire cat.

Everything was quiet for a minute, so Reid pulled out his phone and texted Morgan that he had found a ride home. Morgan immediately replied with a typo-ridden message that basically congratulated Reid on 'gettin some action'. Rolling his eyes, Reid put his phone away.

"So," she said, breaking the silence, "What do you do when you're not stoically clubbing or spouting statistics?"

"I'm a criminal profiler with the FBI."

"Ah. The BAU, isn't it?" Reid was a bit surprised she knew this. "Yeah, that's right, behavioral analysis unit," he said, "What do you do?"

"I'm a parasitologist. Sometimes I write or edit essays on biology, or give college lectures." Reid gave her an impressed look. "I have a PhD in biological sciences, and a master's degree in medical parasitology." she added. Reid was pretty impressed. It wasn't often that he met someone near his age with a PhD. "Do you mind me asking your age?" he asked.

"Don't mind at all. I'm 26." came Lyn's prompt reply.

Reid was saved from having to say something else because Lyn pulled into the tiny parking lot of a small coffee shop. "You said you wanted to stop for coffee, right? This is the only place I know that's open this late." He assured her that it was fine, and they made their way into the small store, which was just one of many on the long brick-and-mortar shopping strip. The strip reminded Reid of quaint Main streets in small towns.

Reid held open the door for Lyn, trying to be a gentleman, and the wonderful scent of coffee and slightly stale pastries greeted him. The store looked larger from the inside than out, and was furnished with obscure newspaper clippings and old photos lining the walls. The chairs and tables were all old but well kept, and Reid noted that they were a complete mashup of metal and wood furnishings, but no plastic whatsoever. Small bookshelves lined the walls, containing old titles mixed with new in various genres and languages. Reid was surprised that this adorable place was so close to his home and work, and much better than his regular coffee stops, but he had never known it existed. He would have to thank Lyn for showing him.

Meanwhile, while Reid was taking in the furnishings, Lyn sauntered right up to the counter and began chatting to the barista.

"Hey Mikey. How are you?" she asked politely but familiarly. She clearly came here often. "Good, I guess. Business has been slow tonight, I was thinkin about closing up early... 'Til I saw my favorite customer!" Mikey was grinning and looking slyly at Reid. "Who's this fella? Ya finally got a boyfriend, eh?" Reid furiously blushed, and Lyn went slightly pink. "N-no, not at all, I mean, I just met him!" Lyn quickly regained her composure and firmly quashed Mikey's teasing. Reid noticed that he didn't look relieved, he just continued grinning as if he knew something that Lyn and Reid did not. He was also clearly much older than Lyn, so Reid figured he didn't have him as competition to worry about. Once he thought that, however, he was shocked at himself, and redirected his attention to ordering coffee.

"Aha, whatever you say hun!" Mikey smiled. "The usual, please," Lyn said to change the subject, and Mikey immediately complied. Lyn looked expectantly at Reid, and he ordered a plain black coffee with a "shit-ton" of sugar, as Lyn so eloquently restated.

Milkey handed over their coffees, for a total of a mere three bucks. Lyn rummaged in her boot and pulled out a five dollar bill, telling Mikey to keep the change, and swatted Reid's hand away when he tried to insist on paying.

"I'm gonna start closing up. Feel free to take those pastries from the case, I gotta get rid of them anyway." Mikey headed toward the back into a room that Reid couldn't see, and Lyn began putting pastries into a paper bag from behind the counter.

While she was busy with that, Reid wandered around, sipping his coffee and looking at one of the many tackboards that lined the walls. There were ads for lost dogs, jobs wanted and services offered, and flyers for local bands, among other things. He wandered over to one of the bookcases and began absentmindedly thumbing through a book about herbal medicine when Lyncame over and tapped him on the shoulder. "Ready to go?" she asked. "BYE MIKEY, HAVE A NICE NIGHT!" she shouted before heading out the door.

"That's a very nice place, I've never been there before," Reid remarked. Lyn smiled and opened her car door.

She started the car and absentmindedly played some music. Obscene punk lyrics blared from the speakers at a high volume, and she quickly shut it off with a pained glance at Reid, who was frowning. "Sorry," was all she said. "Oh, n-no. It's cool. Really." Lyn shrugged. "Suit yourself," she said, and turned the music back on, but down to a significantly lower volume, so now it was just background noise.

She softly hummed the tune off-key and drummed her fingers on the steering wheel, lost in the music, and Reid was subsequently lost in her beauty. Well, he wouldn't say beauty, exactly, but she looked... interesting. She wasn't traditionally beautiful, he supposed. Her hair was a common brown and stick-straight, her body and facial features were small and angular. She did have gorgeous eyes, framed with long lashes, and nice lips, but he sensed that they were curled into a sneer too often to be attractive to most men. She had a frown pasted on her face now, and her brow was furrowed, even though she was happily humming. Huh.

She stopped humming and turned her head to catch him staring. He was so embarassed that he failed to notice that they were parked at an apartment complex until Lyn said "We're at my place!"

Lyn got out of the car and opened Reid's door for him, which was a bit of a role reversal.

"I can call you a cab, or drive you home in a few minutes." She looked embarassed for a minute. "I just really have to urinate, and I have a passionate hatred of public restrooms."

They both stood there awkwardly for a minute. "Uh, yeah. You can come in. If you want. You don't have to..." she trailed off before turning and making her way inside. Reid followed, transfixed.

She lived in a little place on the first floor. She took her keys out of her boot- Reid was starting to think she had everything but the kitchen sink in there, or maybe she had that too- and unlocked a total of seven locks before finally opening her door. Reid made no comment on the sheer number of locks.

Lyn rushed to the bathroom, giving Reid plenty of time to explore the apartment. It was an open floor plan, with a small but modern kitchen looking over the living room, which was furnished with a flat screen television that looked like it didn't get much use, as it was covered in a thin layer of dust. There was a small hall that connected to the bathroom, and a room that must have been the bedroom. The living room was basically covered in books. Bookcases, stacks of books on the end tables, books and papers spread out on the couch. Other than the clutter, it was very clean. There was no dust other than that on the television, and the sink was clear of dishes. There were also bottles of scented hand sanitizer on almost every table in the house. Reid pegged Lyn as a germaphobe, slightly OCD, and very well educated.

He chided himself to stop thinking about her, and just then the toilet flushed.

It was another full minute of the sink running (germaphobe!) before the door opened and Lyn stepped out.

"Would you like some dinner, or something?" Reid kind of shrugged, not really wanting to be trouble, but not wanting to be rude.

Lyn pulled off her boots- Reid was slightly surprised nothing rolled onto the floor- and padded into the kitchen. She pulled a tupperware container out of the fridge, and spooned pasta onto two seperate plates, which she popped in the microwave.

"Sorry about the books everywhere. Anyway, I can put in a movie or something, if you want?"

"Sure."

The microwave beeped and Lyn took out the plates before walking into the living room and picking up a case full of DVDs. "Any preferances?"

Reid shook his head, so Lyn put in a slasher flick. She really loved horror movies.

She grinned at him. "You can dig into that pasta on the counter, and I hope you don't mind horror movies!" There was that Chesire cat grin again. "I'm going to go slip into something more comfortable. Like sweatpants. Don't be afraid to sit down!"

Reid did as she suggested and began watching the movie. It was Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which he had actually seen before.

About ten minutes later, Lyn reappeared, indeed clothed in comfy looking sweatpants and a plain black shirt. She still wore her makeup, though.

"I've actually seen this movie. And this pasta is delicious."

Lyn beamed. "Thanks, I actually cooked that. I'm usually a cappacino and granola bar kinda girl. And really, who hasn't seen this movie? I figured it wouldn't bother you, what with your job and all."

Reid shrugged.

They ended up putting in the Avengers, and Lyn would hit Reid on the head whenever Reid would point out a factual error.

Reid thought about leaving many times, but could never quite bring himself to. They ended up watching three documentaries- the Bubonic Plague, Aztec culture and whales, because why not- and they both fell asleep sometime around the middle of the fourth movie (_"Spencer Reid, you haven't seen Psycho?! No, no, you're watching that right now!"_)

Spencer Reid was woken up the next morning at the ungodly hour of seven a.m. by his phone, singaling he had a case. "Are you kidding me, it's fucking Saturday..." Reid groaned as he denied the call. "Work?" asked Lyn, clearly still half asleep.

It hit Reid then- he had never gone home.

He had slept with Lyn. Literally slept. And now he would have to show up to work wearing the same clothes as yesterday, with no shower or anything.

As if reading his mind, Lyn said "You can shower or whaddever. We'll have to finish Psycho some other time." She turned over, and was already back asleep before Reid could reply. That was fortunate, because he was currently too tired to form coherent sentences.

He took her up on her offer of a shower, and ran out the door to hail a cab. It was Saturday, it had to be urgent, and here he was barely clean. Fucking terrific.

On the elevator on the way to the BAU level, Reid took out his phone and meant to text Lyn and thank her for the movie night, but he remembered with a sinking feeling that they had never exchanged phone numbers.

He had fallen asleep first the previous night, though, and he noticed that she had taken that time to plug her contact info into his phone, as well as setting her caller ID picture to a photo of her posing with a drooling, sleeping Reid.

He was just turning his phone off when the elevator opened. He took a few minutes to get his usual coffee with a shit-ton of sugar, and then rushed to the briefing room.

"Sorry I'm late!" he called to the room full of expectant faces. They all looked dismissive except for Morgan, who gave him a knowing once-over.

After the briefing (three girls murdered in two weeks in a small Michigan town, a signature of a smiley face carved into their backs,) Morgan walked up to Reid with a knowing grin on his face.

"Same clothes." He waggled his eyebrows. "Nice, genius boy spent the night with some honey." He walked away, seemingly proud that Reoid has passed some unspoken milestone. He didn't know how to explain that he actually had slept with her, but not in the way Morgan was thinking.

Maybe...

Reid glanced at his phone.

Maybe.

A/N: Ugh that ending sucked. Sorry, the beginning of this fic was stuck in my head and I just had to write it down, but I always have a hard time ending things. Maybe I'll do more with this OC, idk. Thanks for reading!


	2. Of Parasites and Parking Lots

A/N: Many of you wanted another installment to this fic, so here it is. I had a ridiculously hard time starting this chapter for some reason.I plan on expanding this fic, but I'm leaving the name and complete!status since there's not that much plot, this will also be transferred to Ao3 under the same name (my Ao3 name is also Blackelf99. I'm in the process of transferring all of my fics to there.) Well this author's note was long, sorry.

Reid din't normally get second dates. (He normally didn't even get first dates.) He most certainly didn't get fifth dates. So, when he met Lyn at the door of a small Italian place for their fifth (_fifth!_) date, it felt a little like a dream. In his mind, Reid recounted the dates leading up to this.

Their first date had been that accidental movie night, obviously. The second had been a movie at the theater, which Lyn claimed had been her first in several years (_"It's too damn expensive.I have Netflix, you know!"_) The third, they went to a local theatre production of _Annie._ Reid learned that Lyn had been in numerous school and community-center plays when she was younger, but she never wanted to go pro with her acting. Reid had tripped over a rock in the parking lot, because of course he had. Their fourth date probably wouldn't be considered a date by most people- they had met at Mikey's coffe shop, coincidentally. They were both coming home from work, and Lyn was still in her lab coat and horn-rimmed black glasses (Reid loved those glasses more than he would ever admit.) Lyn spilled coffee on her lab coat and taught Reid a new profanity. They went back to Reid's place and Lyn marvelled at his collection of books (Reid ended up lending her three different books.)

And here he was. Fifth.

He had agonized over what to wear, but eventually just ended up with a trademark sweatervest and tie. The usual. Lyn wasn't the type to care about fashion, anyway (she had once said that the latest fashion show reminded her of a parade of Big Bird costumes. She also had a 'Fuck Fashion' sticker on the door of her closet, but Reid didn't know about that yet.)

He met Lyn outside the door of the restaurant. She was wearing black, as she often did, with her hair down, as it usually was. She had made an effort to dress up a bit though, as she was wearing dark purple lipstick, copious amounts of dark eye makeup under those glasses that Reid loved so much, leather boots with a high heel and a dress. A very tight, low-cut dress in a sexy deep purple that seemed to sparkle in the moonlight and... Reid gulped. _Concentrate_, he thought, _and _not _on her cleavage_! (You see, as genius as the young doctor is, he is still a human male.)

Lyn saw him and waved enthusiastically. "You're a sight for sore eyes; and I love your vest. It's been a long day." She sighed. "Murders are horrible and all, but you try cleaning tapeworm bits off of the walls." Reid made a face that a mix between questioning and disgusted. "It ate too much. One of the projects going on in the lab is to see how much a I don't wanna go into detail, I'm about to eat pasta for fuck's sake!" explained Lyn. Reid was glad, frankly, for the lack of elaboration.

They entered and were promptly seated, mostly due to the fact that the place was only half full.

Or half empty, if you're pessimistic like our two favorite romantically-involved-geniuses.

They ordered their food- Lyn pasta and Reid chicken, he didn't see how she could even eat noodles after working with tapeworms all day.

"Did you know that a female giraffe can give birth while standing up?" asked Reid once they had gotten comfortable.

This was their traditional conversation-starter, now, always trying to one-up each other with information. They were pretty competitive about it.

"Nope. Did you know that the average human is able to recognize approximately ten thousand different odors?"

Reid smiled. "I did know that, actually."

"Bet you didn't know that 75% of sex toys are manufactured in China."

Reid just shook his head- he hadn't known, but he wasn't surprised- and smiled as the waiter walked up with their food, apparently having heard that last sentence, as he was blushing furiously.

He gave them their food and hurried away quickly, probably to go serve a less embarassing couple.

They ate in silence for a minute, until Lyn spoke.

"When I was a kid." Lyn started a sentence and didn't finish it, which was rare for her. She was usually very articulate.

Reid put down his fork in anticipation. "What?"

Lyn sighed. "When I was a kid, I was terrified of, well, everything. Germs, parasites. I thought everything was going to kill me, I thought a worm was going to invade my body and eat my lifeforce away from the inside out." She stared at Reid, unblinking. With her eyes framed with even more black shadow and liner than usual, and those spidery lashes, it was a very creepy effect.

Reid didn't know how to reply, but apparently he didn't need to.

"I'm not afraid anymore," Lyn said simply. She didn't sound relieved or happy, she was just stating facts, blandly, like Reid often did himself. "It's like, the more I learned, the less afraid I was. And... I was wondering if it was the same way... with, yknow... your job." Lyn popped a bite of shrimp fettucine alfredo (pasta was one of her favorite things, Reid had learned) into her mouth and chewed patiently, waiting for him to voice his thoughts.

"It- the death and all, I mean- I just kind of tune it out. It's just work. Sometimes... you get a case that really hits home, but mostly it's just work."

Lyn just nodded. "What's the weirdest case you've ever had?"

Reid had to think a minute. "The creepiest, or the most insane? What exactly do you mean?" Lyn shrugged. "Whatever... The one that's the least, like, beleviable."

"Well, that's tough. I've been a little too close to a few cases. There was one time I was trapped in a cult compound. You have unsubs cutting out eyes and taking hearts to eat. It's a pretty odd job, really. One time, in Pittsburgh, an elderly couple killed several people as a method of foreplay."

Lyn frowned. "That's incredibly strange. Everything. I mean... geez. I get kinky, but that's a bit much." She shook her head and Reid smiled, trying not to think about what she meant by 'kinky'.

"What's the weirdest thing that's ever happened at your lab?" he asked. She gave him an are-you-serious look. "I work primarily with motherufucking _intestinal worms._ I'm the head of the Cestodes department, that means I deal with every tapeworm-related squirmy-wormy problem you imagine, and a thousand more.I don't think I've ever had a day in the lab that you _wouldn't _consider strange! Of course, I do a lot of paperwork, so there are many days that I don't enter the lab. ...Sometimes I even work from home. But I'd say the weirder days are when I assist in the Nematodes- that's roundworms- department. Just because I don't see a lot of them, usually. Sometimes they need another pair of eyes, and cestodes are the most closely related to Nematodes. And sometimes I have to give lectures to college students... That usually gets some weird questions. When you say 'parasite', people tend to think tapeworm, even though 70% of parasites are microscopic protozoas. Even when you do have a cestode case, most tapewroms only get to be about an inch long, in humans. I had someone ask me a question about Cryptosporidium once. That's a protozoa, that's not even my fucking department!" Lyn paused and looked up at Reid. "I'm so sorry, I just went off on a major tanget ridden with parisitic jargon." She winced. "Oops?"

Reid laughed. "It's nice to meet a girl who knows more about intestinal worms than me!" he was only half joking.

Lyn laughed back. "This is normally the part of the date where the guy throws up his noodles and runs away screaming," she confessed. "You're different, I like it."

"You're different too. Good different, I mean. And you put up with my, well... " he made a you-see-what-I-mean face and gestured at himself. Lyn smiled and raised her glass. "Cheers," they clinked, "to mutual social awkwardness."

They ended up sitting in the car, staring at the stars, which were remarkably bright tonight. Reid, of course, started rattling off information about the effects of smog on the ozone layer.

"Hey. Reid."

He stopped, realizing he was rambling.

"We've been on five dates now. And we haven't kissed. Are we twelve or what?" They both laughed at her little joke, but Reid was suddenly unsure of himself. "Did you know 88% of people think it's okay to kiss on the first date?" Lyn asked rhetorically. He was about to reply, but she had cut him off with a kiss. He really should have seen that coming.

When they broke apart, she laughed. "You have purple lipstick on your face!"

After a minute of him frantically wiping at his face, she said "Huh. Maybe I am twelve."


	3. Paperwork and kissing, basically

A/N: BioTARF isn't real, and Maorwhyn Scientific School is not a real college. This chapter is still fluff, plotless as ever. The next chapter will beand Lyn's control issues. Wooo. Stay tuned, R&R!

Sometimes, even geniuses can be a bit slow in certain areas. Take relationships, for example. Reid and Lyn had gone on twenty-two dates (he wasn't counting! okay, who was he kidding, he was counting), and the most they had done was kiss. Both of them were fine with that, but Reid was pretty sure he would've never heard the end of it from the rest of the team if they knew. Hell, he'd have a hard time just breaking the news that he had an actual girlfriend that wasn't crazy. (Well, not psycho-unsub-killer kind of crazy, at least.)

Their twenty-third "date" in four months started very romantically.

Yeah, not.

Reid was frantically running around his apartment trying to find a specific tie- he _knew_ he had just seen it, and for some reason Lyn really seemed to have a tie fetish of some sort- when Lyn knocked on the door. Reid was a bit embarrassed of the mess his apartment was in (looking for that tie, and being to tired to clean after a case), e but she just came in and laid down on the couch. Gracefully as a walrus, facefirst.

"FUUUUUUCKKKKKK." She moaned into a pillow.

Reid was kind of intimidated. "Bad day?" he squeaked. Lyn continued to lay there, and he noticed she had brought a large satchel stuffed with papers, and a laptop. And she wasn't wearing her "date" clothes, just jeans and a plain black t-shirt. (The girl didn't care for color.)

"Very bad. Much work." She sat up and looked at him pleadingly. "I don't think I'm in the mood for anything fancy tonight. I really need to do this paperwork." She made a remarkably scary face at the satchel like she was going to use her laser-eyes to burn a hole in the bag.

Well, at least wouldn't need his tie.

Reid and Lyn were scaring the waitstaff of the diner, but two very frustrated geniuses yelling loudly tends to do that to people. The couple wasn't having a lover's quarrell- that might have been less frightening. No, they were both yelling at each other about their jobs. Or, in all actuality, venting into the air in each other's presence.

"So _Robert, _the incopetent new lab tech, you know? The one that can't tell the difference between a nematode and a trematode? I left him _explicit instructions _of what to inject into our new genome, the one I told you about. And he spliced in _Ancylostoma duodenale_, when I specifically said _Necator americanicus! _Specifically said in the report, size 12 Times New Roman font! How does one misread that? Now my entire geonome is in the fucking toilet! I spent six months preparing that subject, and now I have to do a shit-ton of paperwork and reconstruct the project from only two samples because Robert freaking _misplaced _the third one, and just UGH! _This _is exactly the reason that he isn't allowed to assist with the gastrointestinal cestodes, he could literally kill someone! The worst part is that I can't do anything about it becasue he's not from my department!" She buried her face in her hands, having finished screaming in the middle of the crowded restaurant. Reid was rubbing his own head, waiting for his turn to vent.

"That, first of all, is ridiculous. I hope he gets fired for gross negligence by whomever his supervisors are. But get this, I was doing paperwork, and to close a case file we need the coroner's report, you know. Well, for this last case, the coroner sent in a report for the wrong victim. A poor girl that had nothing to do with the case. So anyway, we couldn't close it until Garcia tracjed this guy down, and it basically held this case up in the system for a few days while he sorted it out. Who's that absent-minded? I mean, Really?!" They both were silent now, rubbing their respective heads, because people are fucking frustrating.

A patron a few tables over let out an audible sigh once they had quieted and quietly asked the waitress: "What in the hell is Ankle-stamina dub-den-whatsit?" The waitress shrugged and poured the woman a new drink. "Hell if I know. One thing's for sure, I feel real bad fer poor ol' Robert."

They had left the diner and ended up back at Reid's place, where he had promised, much to Lyn's stubborn refusal, to help her with her absolutely massive load of paperwork. (_"One of the perks of having a supergenius boyfriend, he can speed read my papers!"_) The stack probably weighed about ten pounds, and that was just what was in physical print.

"With great power comes great responsibility," she sighed as she picked up her pen.

Reid grinned. "Spiderman fan?"

"You know it! We should go see the new one when it comes out."

He nodded. Secretly, he wondered exactly how powerful she was at her job. It would explain the confidence, and the burden would explain her constant frown. (Although, judging from her general personality, he figured she was always pretty doom-n-gloom.)

As if she was reading his mind, she cackled loudly and humorlessly. "It'd be nifty if the Apocalypse would just hurry up and occur now so I don't have to fill out these forms!" She turned to him and the frown melted off her face. "Thanks, though. For helping me." Her fingers traced over his arm and up his tie before dropping hastily back into her lap, and she began working.

The next day, Sunday, Reid got to see exactly how influential Lyn was at her workplace.

She had left a few papers at his apartment by accident, and requested that he drop them by her office. She was working overtime to repair the damage to her last project, and assist with "a few supersecret projects that I'm probably not supposed to talk about". If it was a secret and involved tapeworms, Spencer was pretty sure he didn't want to know about it anyway.

He had taken a cab to the outskirts of Quantico, where the giant campus of "Biological Technology Research Facility" was located. ("_For the love of this earth, Spencer, just use the acronym BioTARF like everyone else.")_ It was located right next to Maorwhyn Scientific School, which BioTARF apparently funded. (Lyn called the college BioTARF-Bootcamp, since pretty much everyone who went there ended up working for BioTARF in some field.)

The building was massive, and so high-tech that it sparkled in the sunlight. There were smaller brick buildings around it, too. He didn't know what any of these buildings were for, and Lyn had assured him that she barely knew herself. He followed her instructions and went straight to the security desk in the lobby of the biggest building.

"I'm, um, here to see Lyn- um, Ashlyn- Snyder?"

The security guard, who looked a little like Morgan, immediately looked suspicious of Reid. "She doesn't have an appointment."

Reid was kind of nervous now, and he wondered whether to break out his FBI credentials. "I'm Spencer Reid? I have some papers for her? Sh-she sh-should be expecting me." He hoped he sounded convincing.

The guard stared at him for a minute, then pulled out a walkie-talkie device of some sort and punched a few buttons in it. "Hey, Dr. Snyder? There's a man at the desk by the name of Spencer Reid here to see you? Says he has papers..." Reid heard a sharp laugh from the device. "Yeah, hold up, I'll be right down."

The guard stared awkwardly at Reid for a few minutes that felt like a few hours until Lyn flew into the room. "Hello, Spencer. Sorry that Jeff kept you waiting." She pointed a friendly glare at Jeff, the guard, who smiled, as if he was accustomed to taking her word for everything. "Now that you're here, why don't you come up to my office? I'm not in the lab today." Reid followed her lead to the elevator.

"I hate elevators," she said, "but the stairs get tiring. Did you know that there are six elevator-related deaths each year?" Reid bit back a laugh, recalling the time he and Morgan had been stuck in an elevator and he had shared that very same fact. "I did, actually." Lyn smiled. "Do you know how many people die by vending machines falling on them per year, on average?" Reid stared at her. He didn't know. She knew he didn't and smirked. "Thirteen! I win!" She smiled triumphantly just as the doors to the elevator opened.

It was a fairly short walk to Lyn's office, but she was stopped twice along the way, given updates and papers. Reid got some questioning looks, but mostly just professional nods of greeting. They made it to the office at the end of the hall, which was the largest on the floor. The plaque on the door read Ashlyn L. Snyder, PhD.

She shut the heavy oak door behind her while Reid looked around the room. Shelves lined the walls, mostly filled with technical books about parasites and biology. Unsuprisingly, Reid had read a great number of them. Ther ewas a desk at the far wall, which was almost criminally tidy.

Lyn compulsively straightened things that were already straight as Reid thumbed through a textbook.

"My colleagues know we're involved," Lyn blurted out in a rush. She absentmindedly opened and closed a book on her desk as she stared at Reid, clearly uncomfortable. "I hope you're okay with that? I mean, it was just, I was talking to one of the biologists and her husband came up and I-"

"Lyn!" Reid nearly shouted. "It's fine. I mean, I'm fine... with that. And. Yeah." he trailed off. That had come out just great, really, Reid, he chided himself. Real confident and reassuring.

She exhaled in relief. "I just wasn't sure if you considered this a serious relationship? Or if you wanted to be all private or whatever. I'm not an expert at reading emotions like you!" She smiled a little and turned her back to him, starting to transfer papers from her desk to a filing cabinet.

Reid crossed the office in a few steps and put him arms around the young scientist. "It's serious, if you want."

He kissed her in a way that would have made even Morgan proud, and when he broke away she grabbed the front of his shirt to keep him in place. "I want that." She said in a clear, levelheaded voice, but when she pulled him back for another kiss it was anything but coldly scientific.

When they stopped, as much as Reid loved it, he was just about to suggest that maybe her office wasn't the best place to do this when she said:

"Don't take this the wrong way, but maybe my office isn't exactly the best place to make out like hormonal teenagers." Reid sighed, partially in relief and partially in disappointment, and nodded.

"Thanks for bringing the papers by, but unless you want to sit and watch me write my name on lots of things and send about a hundred emails, you should probably go make a better use of your day."

Lyn sat at her desk and opened her laptop, as if to emphasize her point. Reid laughed. "Alright, I get it. I guess I'll leave now."

On his way out, her words rang in his ears. A serious relationship. Reid wasn't sure he had ever had what you would call a serious relationship. There had been Maeve, but... He winced. That hurt to think about. He kicked a rock in anger and told himself to stop dwelling on the past and start looking at the future-all that motivational shit.

But Lyn? She was pretty, or at leats he thought so. She wasn't made uncomfortable by his, well, geekiness. In fact, she seemed to like it, and was kind of the same herslef. Plus, she had a thing for ties and sweatervests, so that was a plus, he thought.

He thought it might be time to break the news to the rest of the BAU-

Spencer Reid finally had a girl that actually liked him back. And well, wasn't psychotic.


	4. Darkness and Deep Shit

_**Author's Note of Importance:**_ This didn't turn out like I wanted it, but at this point the characters do what they want, and I merely relay that, lol. So, they wanted to have sex. There's sex in this chapter, but it's the least graphic thing ever because I'm bad at smut. Also, there's badly written angst! Yay! There are also probably typos because it's late at night, but I wanted to get this posted. I'm also not sure how long I'm going to continue this story. I'll do at least one more chapter, and have Reid reveal his relationship to the rest of the team. But then, idk. So anyway, I'll stop rambling. Favorite, comment, all that.

Reid let himself into Lyn's place with the key she had given him (_"You're here all the time, and I don't need all three keys anyway."_) They were supposed to go see a movie.

He opened the door. "Hey, Lyn?" The apartment was dark. All the lights were turned off, so Reid reached for the switch when he heard Lyn's voice.

"Please leave the light off." Her voice was unusually small, soft... almost childlike. He aquised to her wishes, and fumbled toward her voice in the pitch-black room. She was sitting on the floor, for some reason, right in front of the couch. Reid sat next to her on the floor, with so many questions that felt so stupid to say.

"Do you ever feel so small?" she asked before he could say anything. It didn't sound so much like a question as a statement: _she _felt small. Reid didn't know what he was supposed to say to that.

"What do you mean?" he asks, softly, matching her tone.

It's qiet for a minute, then she exhales. "Like nothing even matters and it's pointless and you feel like you should care more and at the same time you feel like you care too much? Like you need to cry but also have no tears, like you're drowning in the dark but it's also a blanket and you want to wrap yourself in it?" A pause. "I don't know." She sighed again. "Sorry for being all weird."

"It's not weird."he said, even though it was. "I've just never met anyone who likes sitting in the dark before."

"Are you afraid of the dark?" she asked, and for a minute Reid wanted to lie, tell her that he wasn't scared of anything, be the kind of brave man that people respected. But, he knew that she wouldn't want to hear that. She wanted the truth, she was that kind of person. Better face the pain than drown in lies and hollow promises.

"Yeah," he said finally, voice rising a couple notches, "I mean... isn't everyone?" She laughed, a dry, humorless laugh. "Probably. I like it. You don't have to see what's wrong. You don't have to face anything. You can be anything. It's possibility, I guess."

"There could be anything hiding in the dark, though. It conceals everything." Another laugh from Lyn. "Exactly," she said simply, and Reid ran his hand along her arm, and he swore she was smiling, even though he couldn't see it.

She got up and made her way across the dark room, gracefully, and turned on the light. It blinded Reid for a moment while his eyes adapted.

"If I keep that off any longer I'm going to get really personal and weird. Or well, uh, more so than I just did. Sorry." He noticed her tone was light now, trying to play off her odd moment of weakness.

"There's no need to apologize. Is... is something wrong?" Reid asked hesitantly. Lyn shook her head. He wasn't sure if that meant "no", or "I don't want to talk about it", but he was betting on the latter. He pushed on. "Seriously, Lyn. Are you okay? You can tell me." He was worried now, he had never seen her this spacey.

She stared at him for a long moment, and he felt like her eyes were searching his soul, as cheesy as that sounded.

Then she sighed again- the girl was a damn professional sigher at this point- and stared at the far wall while speaking to Reid.

"My Grandmother just died." She said it simply, no tears or choking up, just like she was reporting a car crash she hadn't been involved in. She just sounded tired.

"Oh my god, Lyn, I'm so so-"

Lyn held up a hand to cut him off. "That's the thing," she said, bitterly, "I'm not even sad. I mean, we weren't close, but I should feel _something, _and I realized that my whole life I've been so apathetic... Towards most things. I get excited I guess, but..." She shrugged and trailed off.

She saved him again from having to reply by resuming to ramble. "I mean, it's pointless anyway. One day I'll be dead and everyone I know will be dead and the sun will fucking explode and it won't matter that I hated my grandmother or that my house is perfectly fucking tidy and I spent 30 minutes before you got here scrubbing burn marks off a pan. It won't matter, but I have to say it anyway, because..."

She picked her head up out of her hands, and stared straight at Reid.

"I think I'm in love with you."

There was an awkward silence, and Spencer thought for a minute that she was out of words, but she wasn't.

Her voice was so quiet it was almost a whisper. "That sounds so fucking stupid, but."

She stopped. "It's not stupid," Reid reassured her. "I'm glad that people choose to shout into the void anyway, because you're right, it's temporary, but that doesn't matter because it's all we have, isn't it?" He had crossed the length of the room to Lyn, gesticulating wildly with his hands, and the two geniuses both stood there for a moment, staring at each other. "I love you." She whispered, and he kissed her.

They looked like a pair of teenagers, desperate and heated, instead of the multiple-degree-having doctors that they both were. They broke apart, and Lyn was breathless and happy. "I guess we're not seeing that movie?" Spencer asked jokingly.

She shook her head. "I guess not." Reid felt wonderful knowing he had made her smile. And that she _loved _him. She loved _him. _Was this an alternate reality?

It must be a dream, he decided as she began running her fingers seductively up and down his arms and chest, pulling on his tie.

"Spencer." It was just one word, quietly, mumbled against his shirt, but he thought he was going to explode. She knew what she was doing, he thought, how could she not?

It wasn't that it was his first time, exactly. He had had flings, one-nighters in Vegas a few times, but he had never really cared about anyone so much, and he didn't want to mess it up.

"I-Lyn, I... This is killing me," he said, and she grinned. "I know!" She exclaimed, giggling, a bit embarrassed. She quickly sobered, pulling back. "I'm sorry, I thought- I'm sorry," she babbled. "I thought you wanted this," she said, looking embarrassed and a bit disappointed.

Reid shook his head frantically. "I do. I mean, if that's what you want. And I don't have any, um..." he blushed, mostly at his lack of preparation than the word itself. Luckily, Lyn caught on. "Protection?" she winked. "That's okay. I do. Also on the pill, you know, just to be super-safe." She gave a thumbs up and a goofy grin, and Reid chuckled becasue the entire situation was ridiculous. He was still laughing when she took his arm and led him to her room, which he had never seen before. There were paintings on the wall, and a slew of bumper stickers covered the closet doors. Books were everywhere, no surprise. He didn't really take in much more than that, given the situation and the determination with which Lyn was dragging him.

She tossed him a small foil package, and proceeded to strip down to her matching underwear and bra. They were plain grey, nothing frilly or special, but Reid thought she was the most beautiful sight he had ever seen. He was so busy staring, in fact, that he was moving at a snail's pace.

"Why _the literal fuck _are your clothes still on?!" she asked bluntly. "I'm working on it, foxy mama." said Reid, but it came out more like a question than an answer. Lyn smirked and tapped her foot.

"Spencer Reid, if you ever call me that again, I will straight up bitch slap you." She probably wasn't kidding, but he laughed, and she laughed too. Reid didn't think normal people laughed this much right before sex, but oh well. They weren't normal people.

Reid finally managed to get his clothes off, and they both hopped onto the plush memory-foam bed. "Oh my god," Reid moaned, "Your fucking bed..." Lyn smiled. "Nooo, I'm not fucking bed, I'm fucking you, on bed." He chuckled at her play on words.

"We're like, making love, and all that cheesy shit," Reid replied, and they started kissing and stopped talking.


	5. Confessions and under- Caffienation

A/N: Reid tells the team about Lyn. This chapter is kind of short and basically just filler. There will be more chapters after this, as well... I have something in mind for the next chapter right now! If there are typos or if something doesn't make sense, message me. My craptastic word program is to blame. Thanks for the support everyone :)

Reid woke up at preciseley ten minutes after his alarm was supposed to go off. Checking the time on his phone and realizing he was already late, he jolted up in bed. Scrambling up in an effort to make up for lost time would have woken most people had they been sharing the bed, but Lyn slept like a bear in hybernation. Reid thought she could probably sleep through a nuclear fallout.

He pulled on his clothes, which were tossed haphazardly around the room just last night. They probably still would have been, had Lyn not folded them and placed them neatly on the end table. He was thankful for that, or he would not only be wearing the same clothes as yesterday, but he would probably end up without his socks, or something like that.

As the boy genius struggled with a pair of pants, he flashed briefly back to the previous night. He had been awkward, he knew, but Lyn had assured him that he was fine. He had gotten out of the shower to find Lyn wearing pajamas, the bed made up with new sheets, and Lyn sound asleep. The girl was damn efficient.

Reid pulled on all his clothes and straightened his hair as best he could with his hands.

He was unlocking the locks on the door (_"They were here when I moved in, but I'm grateful for them anyway. A burglary occurs every fifteen seconds in the U.S.,"_) when Lyn plodded out, running a hand through her hair.

"Think you're forgetting something?" she asked, cuttingly sarcastic even before she had fully opened her eyes. Reid looked himself over, not noticing anything wrong, and shrugged.

Lyn gave him a pause, a smile playing around her lips. "Spencer. Your shoes?"

He looked at his feet sheepishly. Lyn snatched his black converse from the floor near the couch and handed them to him with a grin. "I have these exact same shoes." she meandered over to the coffee pot and waved him off.

Reid arrived at the BAU, miraculously on-time. He beelined to the coffee pot, since he hadn't had any that morning and hadn't gotten much sleep, for obvious reasons.

It was just his luck that he bumped into Morgan.

He gave Reid a knowing once-over and smirked. "Pretty boy, this is the second time you've showed up in the same clothes two days in a row. And you look all ruffled. Wanna let me know who she is?" he joked.

Reid paled and said nothing. Really, first thing in the morning, and he was being interrogated. Of course.

Morgan raised an eyebrow. "It is a she, right?"

Reid just sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Yes, she is most definitely female." he said, finally giving up the charade. Morgan whistled. "Garcia owes me twenty bucks!" he laughed. Reid just looked confused. "You... You bet on... my sexual orientation?" he asked, puzzled.

Morgan shook his head just as Garcia marched in the room, followed closely by JJ. "Who now bet on what now?" asked Garcia. "You owe me twenty, foxy mama!" said Morgan jubilantly, slapping Garcia on the back.

Garcia looked let down. "I still don't know what's going on!" Reid interrupted, irritated. JJ tried to hide her smile, but it was a futile attempt. "They, um." She choked back a laugh. "They had a bet on whether or not you were dating someone." Morgan was grinning, still. "It's that honey you met at the club, isn't it!" he exclaimed like a proud older brother, poking Reid in the arm.

Reid didn't know whether to laugh or scream. Or both.

"I see I have some confusion to clear up," he mumbled. "Yes, Morgan, it's 'that honey from the club.'" He made air quotes with his fingers when he quoted Morgan's words, and rolled his eyes. He had a feeling he would never live this down.

"I told you going to the club would be good for you!" retorted Morgan, almost shouting. Rossi walked into the room at that moment- what was today, a freaking everyone-goes-for-coffee-and-gangs-up-on-Reid holiday?

"I have been sent by Hotch to rope you into the conference room, as we have a case." Rossi said. JJ left promptly, and Morgan trailed after her, still grinning at Reid. Reid rolled his eyes again and followed the rest of the team, not realizing until he was in the conference room that he hadn't gotten any coffee after all.

Reid sat on the jet, hunched over the case file. The team was headed to Texas, where an unsub had been killing young gay men and staging them in churches, as if to attone for their sins. What was it about the deep south and religious craziness, thought Reid, massaging his head.

Morgan chose that moment to relocate to the seat next to him. "Hey, Reid, sorry about earlier." Morgan said, not looking apologetic so much as slightly- very slightly- embarrassed. Reid raised an eyebrow. "About, you know. Telling the entire team about your personal life. It's just..."

Reid rolled his eyes for the fourth time that morning. "Just the fact that it's me? Yeah, yeah." he should have been offended, annoyed, or maybe embarrassed. Strangely, he wasn't any of those things at all. "It's alright, Morgan. Really."

"Oh, come on, you have to admit it's sort of a big deal." retorted Morgan. Reid cracked a smile. "Yeah, I do. I of all people should know how big of a deal it is."

Reid pulle dhis phone out of his messenger bag and opened his photo album, then handed the phone to Morgan. "This is her. Her name is Lyn."

Morgan made an impressed face. "Damn, she's got it going on!" he said as he flipped through several photos of Lyn. Reid took the phone back and gave Morgan a look that said "now don't get too many ideas".

Morgan put his hands up ina gesture of surrender. "What's she like? If you wanna tell me, that is."

Reid laid back for a minute, thinking. "Ashlyn Snyder." he savored the words on his tongue, realizing he hadn't spoken her name aloud to anyone he knew. "She's 26. Head of the cestodes- that's tapeworms- department at the Biological Technology Research Facility just outside of Quantico." Reid stared out of the jet window for a second. "Lyn is a genius. A literal genius, she has a PhD. She peels off her fingernails and rattles off facts when she gets nervous. She chews a lot of gum, always the same kind- Sugarfree Extra in a minty flavor. She always sort of smells like mint and vanilla. She doesn't get scared very easily... she really loves horror movies, and doesn't mind if I talk about, you know..." he gestured at the jet. "Work. She's a workaholic, too... I'm fairly sure she lives on coffee and catnaps. She's not exactly a social butterfly. Her friends brought her to the club that night, but she really hates clubs. And club music. Oh, and she's allergic to cats but not dogs. And she cleans a lot, since she has a bit of OCD, but she always has on music while she does it and likes to dance around and..." Reid took a long pause and looked at Morgan. "I'm rambling, sorry." he finished sheepishly.

Morgan smiled. "Naw, I'm glad you're so caught up in this girl. I thought after-" Morgan stopped abruptly, eyes widening as he caught himself.

"After Maeve?" Reid asked, toneless and expressionless. Morgan nodded.

Reid was quiet, almost whispering. "I loved Maeve. But if I..." he stopped, trying not to choke up. The pain was still there, just not his predominant emotion.

"Hey." Morgan's voice cut into his thoughts. "It won't do you any good to dwell on... her, when you have someone else right in front of you. Someone who you clearly love." Morgan smiled and put on his headphones, leaving Reid to his thoughts as the jet made its way towards Texas.


	6. Chinese food and Chatting

A/N: Sorry that this chapter took so long! I'm in the middle of a move, so I haven't had as much free time or internet access as I'd like. Feedback is appreciated! Thanks for the support from everyone :-)

The team solved the case remarkably fast- just a little under 24 hours. Reid didn't think it would be easy to catch a religiously-motivated unsub in the deep south, but he got messy- leaving fingerprints that matched up with his previous record (assault of several gay people, because how obvious can you get), and he confessed immediately once in custody, proud to be doing "the Lord's work". Reid fell asleep immediately once onboard the jet, and didn't wake up til the team reached Quantico again.

Morgan approached Reid as the team got off the jet. Reid, still half asleep, made a facial expression that would have been misinterpreted by most people. Morgan had known him so long, he just ruffled his hair. "Ey, sleepy head," he laughed, "The team's going out for Chinese. Wang's on fourth street. You in?"

Reid shrugged. "I don't really-"

He was cut off by Morgan. "C'mon, even Hotch is coming. Hotch." Morgan paused. "Y'know, this would be a good chance to introduce the team to that pretty lady of yours. If you wanna, that is." he said, holding his hands up.

Reid nodded, pondering the idea. He knew Lyn wouldn't object. In fact, she had said she really wanted to meet the team, as Reid had told her so much about them.

He pulled out his phone and shot off a text to Lyn, and was granted with a reply in less than a minute. If she was answering her phone, she must be in the office and not the lab- good, she could put off paperwork sooner than an experiment.

Her reply text said "Sure. It's not like I want to do all this paperwork, and lord knows I don't have any other plans." That was Lyn, with her self-depricating humor. Reid chuckled and gave Morgan the news that yes, he should save seats for 'Reid-plus-one'.

The team was barely seated at Wang's Chinese restaurant when Lyn came in, looking sheepish. "Sorry for being late. Talk about bad first impressions." JJ smiled. "We just got here, seriously, we don't even have drinks yet. We're very excited to meet you!" JJ looked at the others lining the table, as if prompting them to be nice. Lyn smoothed down her outfit- gray slacks and a black shirt. She wore a bright lime green scarf with owls on it and matching owl earrings. Penelope's face lit up. "I love your scarf!" she gushed, reaching out her hand to shake with Lyn. "I'm Penelope Garcia." Lyn was then introduced to everyone around the table in rapid succession before finally sitting down beside Reid. "I've heard a lot about you all." She said, and with a quick glance at Reid added "All good things, don't worry!"

"Well, we've heard about you... as of today," chimed in Rossi in a teasing voice. Lyn rolled her eyes but grinned. "Why I wonder why?" she asked. "I'm really embarrassing!" she added in a stagewhisper.

"He wasn't very good at hiding it, though," chuckled Morgan. "Even worse than JJ and Will." JJ playfully swatted him on the arm, and by then the waiter had come to take their orders.

While the team waited for their food to arrive, they made light conversation about the BAU and Lyn's work. "Figures genius boy would land a genius girlfriend," Morgan had groaned when Lyn revealed her position and degrees.

Their food finally arrived. Lyn had ordered lo mein noodles, and expertly maneuvered her chopsticks to bring heaps of slimy, tapewormy noodles into her mouth. Morgan wondered how in the world she could stand it, but knew better than to ask.

Reid sat there, not eating.

"You okay, Spencer?" asked Lyn cautiously.

Reid stared blankly at her hands, still holding the chopsticks. "How do you do that?"

Lyn looked confused. Reid just motioned at the pair of sticklike utensils with a frown. Everyone at the table burst out in peals of laughter, with even Hotchner cracking a smile. "I forgot you can't use chopsticks," said JJ, catching a passing waiter by the arm. She discreetly asked for a fork as Reid picked up his chopsticks indignantly.

He pokedat his chicken as Lyn giggled behind her hand to avoid spewing water everywhere. When she had composed herself and stopped laughing, she choked out, "It's good to know there are some things I'm still better at than you!"

The waiter passed by and handed Reid a fork as he replied. "That's not true, there are lenty of things she's better at."

"Sports, probably," Garcia chimed in. "Fahion?" pondered JJ. Lyn grinned. "I'm actually atrocious at sports," she admitted. "If it involves a ball, count me out!" (This would have been the part where she would have made a joke about balls of the testicular variety, for the sole purpose of making Reid adorably uncomfortable. However, she wasn't a middle school boy, so that was not a joke to be made at dinner. Or ever, in public.)

The group had a nice dinner, and Lyn was pleased that she hadn't managed to spill anything on herself. Or otherwise made a fool of herself, which she seemed to do in small groups quite often. A crowd of 500 was no problem, but a few friends together and she was bound to laugh at the wrong thing, mention tapeworms at an entirely inappropriate time, or something like that. It was an odd thing, but she was secretly happy that Reid was even more socially awkward than walked out of the restaurant with Reid, rather pleased with her tiny social victory at dinner.

Reid opted to ride back to Lyn's apartment with her instead of being dropped off at his home by Morgan, and for once Lyn didn't blast music in the car.

"I think that went well," she said. "Of course it did." said Reid. "Why wouldn't it? You're... you."

Lyn rolled her eyes. "Despite what you might think, most people don't want to hear about my essay on the life cycle of the _Taenia saginata_."

"I know, but I'm shocked you didn't win the Selma A. Waksman award for that."

"You're the one who needs some sort of prize. Maybe a "genius-who-apprehends-sickos-while-wearing-sexy-ties" award?" She laughed. Reid looked down at his tie and shrugged. "It's sort of perpetually crooked," he mused, and Lyn just shook her head and rolled her eyes.


	7. Relaxing with the Roman Goddess

Note: So sorry this chapter took so long! I've been on vacation, through a move, and back to school since I last updated, but here I am again. No promises that I'll be any speedier in the future, as I sort of have an actual life, but I'll try! Thanks for the feedback and support, every 'like' boosts my ego! ;-)

"Do you want me to take you home, or my place?" Lyn inquired as she coasted her sleek black car out of the parking lot. Reid gave a noncommittal half-shrug. "We're about three point seven miles closer to your house than mine," he said, and Lyn pondered why she wasn't surprised that he knew the location to such a precise calculation. "Might as well," she replied tonelessly, "and besides, you left some of your clothes at my house. I washed them. And ironed them." She shot him a glance that was almost apologetic, and he knew she'd had an episode of particularly intense neat-freak-ness, Obsessive-Compulsive, in all honesty, where she was struck with the uncontrollable urge to tidy, polish and reorganize any and all items and surfaces... Apparently including the clothes that he had probably left in a crumpled heap on her perfectly vacuumed floor, like a split bag of trash left to rot along the newly cemented highway.

They rode to her house in comfortable silence. That was a luxury that Lyn was fully aware most people didn't have, and she was glad that she didn't feel the need to constantly fill the void with inane babble and jargon when she was around Reid. He relaxed her, and she occasionally wondered if this was how love felt. She was aware of an old Buddhist philosophy, which said that when you met your soul mate, you wouldn't feel euphoria or butterflies like in the sub-par popular novels that she read just for laughs... but rather a sense of calm.

She stopped the car, staring at Reid as he climbed out with all the grace of a baby giraffe, and smiled. No, she thought, if this wasn't what a relationship was supposed to be like, she was alright with being wrong.

Reid grimaced at her. "What?" he asked, mock-offended, to which she just shook her head.

Once inside the apartment, after the ritual of re-locking the door, Lyn went to the kitchen to make some tea. Since the kitchen overlooked the living room, she watched Reid as he made himself comfortable on her couch, which was soft gray and decorated with many needless throw pillows depicting dragonflies, birds, snakes and flowers. Lyon's friend, who was an interior decorator, described her house as "a hodgepodge of absolute craziness, but in a clean way," and Lyn had to agree- there were towering bookcases filled with books ranging in genre, mismatched wooden and metal tables, throw pillows, hanging pictures of whatever one could imagine on the wall, some of which Lyn had painted herself (they were the worst ones, honestly,) and small gargoyle statues dotted the shelvescape. It was clean, though. Always clean and organized, she had to give herself that, but hey, she was a scientist, not an artist.

By the time these thoughts had crossed her mind, the kettle was whistling on the stove, begging for attention even more so than that delectable position Spencer was currently sprawled in... She made two sups of peppermint tea, her favorite, and precariously made her way over to the couch with the heavy mugs.

She set them down on the dark mahogany coffee table, which was covered in books that she had to use as coasters. "Have I given you peppermint tea yet?" she inquired, and Reid sat up and shook his head. "Oh, you'll like it, I think... I need to alphabetize these," she added, dropping to her knees and starting to straighten the coffee table books. Reid grabbed her arm. "You don't have to do that right now, Lyn," he said, and she reluctantly conceded and sat on the couch next to him.

Upon tasting the minty liquid inhabiting his cup, Reid made a face that Lyn couldn't quite read. It looked like he was constipated, or something of that sort. "It's an acquired taste," she said, smiling. "I'll make some coffee if you don't like it." Here, she gave a sort of apathetic single-shoulder-shrug. "I'm good, um, but thanks." Lyn shrugged again. "Eh. She grabbed the remote and flipped on the television.

"Nothing on." she said, "as usual." Reid raised an eyebrow. "You didn't even look!" Lyn smiled without any humor. "Don't have to. There's never anything on." Reid had to agree with that- he didn't even have cable anymore, since he watched TV so little. All he needed were books, documentaries and maybe the news... He knew that Lyn kept up on popular media more than him, but she was still drastically behind compared to even J.J. And she never made fun of him for not having read, seen, or even heard of the latest phenomenon, which was nice.

He finally tuned into the program that was currently gracing the screen in front of him. It was a program about what men like in women. Lyn was booting up her laptop, clearly not paying any attention to the utter nonsense being spouted. She gestured towards the remote with her head. "You can change it to whatever."

"_Men like it when they feel heard in the relationship, just like women," _prattled the well-dressed blonde hostess. "How fucking astute of you, I never would have guessed that men are also human beings," Lyn remarked tonelessly, which somehow emphasized the sarcasm.

The show was now talking about what Lyn would have called the fragile masculine ego. "_He hates it when he feels emasculated, so when you two fight, make sure not to treat him like a child. In other words, let him be assertive and masculine sometimes! He wants to be powerful for his fragile lady!" _the woman on TV babbled. Lyn's eyebrows had receded practically into her hairline in disbelief. "This is blatantly sexist as fuck. This better be satire." Reid grabbed the remote and turned the channel to Animal Planet. "That was..." Reid didn't finish his sentence, he merely shared a glance with Lyn. They both shook their heads.

A few minutes passed, with Reid staring off into space and Lyn click-clacking away at the keys on her laptop keyboard, probably composing an email to a colleague or something of the sort, Reid thought.

He watched her, staring intently at the bright screen on her lap. Her face was twisted into a scowl, eyebrows knit and lips pursed. She leaned forward, as if she were struggling to see, but Reid knew that was just a habit, along with the squinting- after all, she was wearing glasses, and she was nearsighted anyways. He watched her fingers fly with a needlessly strong jab at each individual key. He knew, as anyone probably could with just a single glance, that she was the confident one. Reid had gained confidence in the past few years, and he didn't think too badly of himself, despite what people might think. But Lyn... she radiated a sort of powerfully apathetic attitude that Reid wished he could emulate, coupled with her sharp wit and intellect, she was a goddess in his eyes. A Roman sort of goddess, battle ready and powerful, but sharing human flaws all the same.

She seemed to sense his eyes on her, and her head snapped to attention. "Am I an exquisite exhibit for you?" she asked, jokingly, but there was a softness in her tone. Reid grinned contently and shrugged. She giggled. "You look like the love interest in a Jennifer Aniston movie, all moony-eyed," she said. Reid gave her a puzzled look, and Lyn shook her head, laughing lightly. Spencer knew that she wasn't laughing at him, like the team sometimes did, like people who thought he was just a shy little geek did. She set her computer on the table, carefully maneuvering it so that it wouldn't crash into her tea mug, which remained untouched- and spontaneously dropped her head into Reid's lap, staring up at him through black-framed eyes and long lashes. "I fucking love you." She said, so freely and yet so powerfully simultaneously.

She adjusted her head so that she was facing the TV, but Reid could still see her face perfectly. Reid knew that they were both a bit fucked up, but it worked, no matter how cheesy he sounded.


End file.
